The Voltori
The Volturi are the largest and most powerful coven of vampires. They enforce the laws of the vampire world. The equivalent of royalty in the vampire world, the Volturi consists of 5 core members: Aro, Caius, Marcus, Aro's wife Sulpicia, and Caius's wife Athenodora. Marcus's wife (and Aro's sister) Didyme was also a member before she was killed by her brother. Aside from these head members, it also consists of a collection of powerfully imposing vampires, known as the "Volturi guard", the most powerful being Chelsea, Jane and Alec. Purpose The Volturi act as the unofficial royalty in the world of vampires, and are an incredibly influential coven. They are also considered 'nighttime patrons of the arts' as, because of their inability to sleep, they study the arts at night. The Volturi act as guardians, keeping the secret society of vampires hidden from the human world as needed. They often send their agents to travel from Volterra to destroy overzealous covens from exposing vampires through mass eradication of every vampire (and any humans) present. The coven has existed for over 3000 years, and is the largest coven in existence, followed by the Olympic, the Denali, and the Mexican covens. Laws Throughout the centuries, the Volturi have established and enforced a number of laws that all vampires are expected to obey or get sentenced to death if they don't. There aren't many of them, and they mainly concern the secrecy surrounding the existence of vampires. The laws are not written down; to write them would in itself be an infraction. Instead, the laws are passed by word of mouth from vampire to vampire. *Hunts must be inconspicuous, with victims unlikely to be missed; their remains must be disposed of and territory must be changed often. *Incapable of self-control, and therefore a threat of exposure, immortal children are not to be created. Such creation is the ultimate taboo and punishable by death to both child, the creator, those who defend the child and those who know of its existence. This Law was dropped with the creation of Galashiels. *Dealing with Children of the Moon, except for the purpose of extermination, is prohibited. *False witness, regardless of intent, is punishable by death. *Hunting is forbidden in Volterra, the town of residence of the Volturi; their food is brought from outside, sometimes from quite far away. *Attention should not be drawn and vampires should not be noticed in open sunlight. *The creator is responsible for his newborn's behavior and teaching of the laws before they can be released on their own. By letting a newborn hunt conscpicuously, the penalty will be death both to the newborn and its creator. Even if the newborn is ignorant of the law, his rash acts are still punishable by death. *Vampires' interaction with humans must not draw wide attention. If a human becomes aware of them, the vampire at fault would be responsible for silencing that human. This mostly leads to two options: either make the human join the immortals or silence that human permanently. Throughout the centuries, many vampires are born after the laws were established, and every vampire was taught of these laws by their creator. Though they think of the laws as an accepted fact, they do not know that it is really the Volturi's scheme to maintain control of the vampire world. To this day, many vampires continue to obey the laws. Like the Cullens are obeying, which leads them to move approximately every 6 to 7 years to avoid suspicion in the human world. Members Current members Leaders , Caius and Marcus.]] Aro, Caius and Marcus are the leaders of the Volturi. They command the Volturi guard and act as representatives when dealing with other covens. They rarely leave the city, but will do so occasionally when the situation demands it. * ]]Aro: The official leader. His power of tactile telepathy allows him to access every thought a person has ever had by making physical contact with them. He is the most greedy, careful, yet ambitious and manipulative of the leaders, always looking for ways to collect the gifts that he desires, and would kill those he cares about if it meant maintaining his power of authority. * ]]Caius: Aro's partner and co-leader of the Volturi. He does not possess any special talents, but his ambitions and hatred toward the Romanian Coven impressed Aro so much that he decided to recruit him when they formed the coven. He is often in disagreement with Aro, but Chelsea's power has kept Caius loyal to him. * ]]Marcus: A co-leader with the power of relationship identification. With it, he can read the emotional bonds of others and see the weaknesses. Aro uses his gift to find the weakest spots of their enemies' emotional bonds and then use it against them. Marcus has been completely apathetic and uninterested in everything since the death of his mate, Didyme. Wives and Sulpicia.]] Mates of the Volturi leaders. The wives are also powerful figures of authority and core members of the coven, but they only go on trials with their husbands on behalf of extremely important matters, not leaving their tower in Volterra but once every few centuries. Since then, the wives became virtual prisoners in their tower. To keep them happy and content, Aro sent Corin to keep them company, using her power of being able to provide people with an addictive contentment. Aro's sister and Marcus's wife, Didyme, was also one of the wives before she was killed; her death is what prompted the others to be guarded. If the wives are taken to witness the coven's actions, they are usually very heavily guarded as well. *'Athenodora': Caius's mate. She has been part of the coven since before they rose to power. *'Sulpicia': Aro's mate. Aro created her, because he wanted to make a mate instead of finding one in order to avoid complications. She is completely loyal to him. Guard and Alec: the Volturi's most powerful guards. ]] The guard, also known as the Volturi guard, is a group of vampires with powerful capabilities and subordinates of the coven. Each member is given assignments fitting to their useful qualities: while most guards are assigned with protecting the prominent members and acting as executioners, some are assigned with other useful tasks. The Volturi have been shown to invite mostly vampires with incredibly powerful gifts that the leaders see as useful to ensuring that their authority amongst other covens goes unchallenged. Aro only allows the ones with the best of skills to join the guard. When a vampire is invited into the Volturi, he or she is forced to feel content about joining due to Chelsea's gift to manipulate emotional bonds, usually guaranteeing a swift initiation into the group. When the Volturi find a vampire more gifted than one of their guards, they would try to recruit him or her to replace the member, or at least to join the organization. If a guard member is dismissed, he is either released on his own or be sentenced to death, depending on how useful he might be of to other covens. The Volturi guard currently stands at nine permanent members and a number of more transitory guard members. Each guard wears a cloak, whose color is an indication of their status/ranking; the darker its shade is, the more valuable that vampire is considered. The transitory guard members wear the gray cloaks while the nine permanent members wear the darker cloaks. Jane and Alec have the second darkest cloaks, while Chelsea's is almost the pure black of the leaders. Their most powerful members are the twin vampires: Alec, who can cut off all senses of a person; and Jane, who can implant an illusion of pain into a target's mind. Though their talents are merely mental, they have made the Volturi untouchable. Though the Volturi guard mostly consists of gifted vampires, there have been exceptions. If a physically imposing vampire impresses the leaders, he will be invited to join them as a guard. There had also been cases where vampires wished to join the coven, but were turned away because the leaders found them uninteresting or unreliable: this was the case for Laurent, who once sought them out, but was turned away by Aro because of his association with the Romanian coven. *'Afton': One of the lowest ranked members within the guard. Though he has the gift of mental invisibility, he owes his state to his mate, Chelsea, who is the prominent member of the Volturi. His power is only enough to protect himself from pursuers by making himself mentally invisible to his enemies, but it can be easily seen through by someone with a sharp focus. * ]]Alec: One of the two most powerful weapons of the Volturi; the other being his older twin sister, Jane. Alec has the power of sense deprivation, which allows him to block all senses of those he directs at, making them simple targets during slaughter and incapacitation. His power manifests a hazy mist that blocks senses as soon as it touches someone; he can also control whom he wishes to affect, allowing others to easily slaughter his targets. For this reason and his ability to affect several people at the same time, he is the single most powerful weapon in battle. *'Chelsea': She is the linchpin of the Volturi due to her power of relationship manipulation, which allows her to break the emotional bindings of the Volturi's enemies as well as make a wanted vampire willingly join them. Whenever Aro invites a certain vampire into the coven, she uses her power to create the loyalty that wasn't there before and make that vampire willingly join the coven. She is also the center of the coven's organization, as she made the members more connected with one another. Because of this power, she shares a special relationship with Aro and often receives what she wants, in one occasion having her mate, Afton, be allowed to stay with the Volturi. Although her gift is powerful, it is not powerful enough to loosen the ties of true love. *'Corin': A guard with the power of addictive contentment, therefore she is assigned with keeping Sulpicia and Athenodora company in their tower. Though her power is useful in making others feel content and happy with their situations, it has a side-effect: anyone exposed to her power for too long will feel physically uncomfortable if they are not exposed to it for a period of time. Her power is the main reason that Chelsea is unable to leave the Volturi. * ]]Demetri: An extremely powerful tracker. His power allows him to pick up the essence of someone's mind and then follow it over any distance across the world to hunt them down. Because of this, he is the main threat to those who wish to escape the Volturi's slaughter. He can track a target after meeting him for the first time or by coming in contact with someone who had met him in the past, and then pick up the essence. * ]]Felix: The physically strongest warrior the Volturi has ever had. Though he wears a gray cloak that represents the replaceable guards, he actually has a permanent position within the coven. His superior strength and knowledge in combat skills makes him an intimidating opponent to those who try to fight him. It would be suicide to challenge him physically. Therefore, Felix is often present during executions. * ]]Heidi: The "fisher", also the "bait", of the coven. Her power of physical attraction allows her to attract people, vampire or human, which is why she is mainly responsible for luring "food" to the Volturi's castle by feigning well-paid jobs and/or vacations to countries other than Italy. * ]]Jane: One of the two most powerful weapons of the Volturi; the other being her younger twin brother, Alec. Her power of illusionary pain works by implanting a thought into a single target to make them think they are being burned alive, which effectively turns them into a simple target. This makes her frightening to other individuals. Her power is effective in maintaining a peaceful confrontation and inspiring fear. She also uses her power to incapacitate her opponents when the leaders are "counseling". *'Renata': Aro's personal bodyguard. She has a powerful shield that allows her to repel an attacker and make them go another way. Her main responsibility in the guard is to protect Aro, but when Caius and Marcus are in need, she is assigned to protect them as well. * ]]Santiago: A physically imposing guard in the coven, though his strength and skills aren't as impressive as Felix's. Like Felix, he has no psychic gift, only tremendous physical strength. Other members There are 17 other unnamed members in the Volturi guard, some of them described as brawny as Felix, making the entire Volturi coven based on approximately 32 vampires in Breaking Dawn, including the leaders and their wives.Breaking Dawn These guard members are mostly assigned to ensure the safety of the leaders, their wives, and Jane and Alec during battle. However, some of them are likely to have useful supernatural gifts that have ensured their positions within the guard. Former members *'Didyme': Marcus's deceased wife and Aro's younger sister. She had a gift to induce happiness in those around her. She and Marcus fell in love, and as they grew tired of the Volturi's lifestyle, they decided to leave the coven to find a more peaceful lifestyle. But before they could, Aro killed his own sister in order to keep Marcus within the Volturi, because he found his brother-in-law's power far more useful than hers. Till this day, Marcus doesn't know who her killer is. * ]]Eleazar: A former member of the Volturi. He was invited into the coven because Aro thought his ability to sense the gifts in others was useful for when the Volturi scouted for new members. He resigned after meeting his spouse, Carmen, and joined the Denali coven sometime later. Aro only permitted his resignation to preserve his gift for later use. Eleazar is the only known guard member to leave the Volturi completely on his own will. *'Unnamed tracker': According to The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide, the Volturi once had another tracker before Demetri, but when they heard of Demetri's skill proving more efficient than his, they had him replaced. Whether he still lives today remains a mystery. *'Recruited humans': During the Volturi's early reign, they recruited humans who sought the power and immortality of vampire lore and introduced them into the world with a set of preconceived ideas about vampire society - ideas that those new vampires eventually introduced to their own "offspring" and other covens they came in contact with. The Volturi continued to recruit humans after their position became well accepted in the world of vampires, though on a smaller scale: they utilized humans hopeful of becoming vampires as servants in order to create a human facade for their ancestral home. The majority of these humans were killed for their blood, and only those with potential supernatural talents were transformed. * ]]Bianca: She was the Volturi's human secretary after Valentina's disposal, and only appeared at the end of the first ''Breaking Dawn'' movie. Because of her bad spelling and grammar, Aro had her disposed of. * ]]Gianna: She was the Volturi's human secretary who appeared only in New Moon. She had hoped to become a vampire, but in the end the Volturi found her nothing more valuable than her blood. * ]]Valentina: She was the Volturi's human secretary after Gianna's disposal, only appearing in a deleted scene of the first ''Breaking Dawn'' movie. Dissatisfied of her interrupting the Volturi's meal, Aro told Demetri to dispose of her. Desired members There have been a number of individuals who refused invitations to join the Volturi: some of their superior emotional bonds were strong enough to resist Chelsea's gift. The only vampire who is immune to most of their powers is Bella Swan, who has the ability to block invasive psychic powers and can shield others from them. * ]]Alice Cullen: A member of the Olympic coven. She has been invited into the coven several times by Aro due to his impression of her ability to see the future; but she declined every time. Edward has said that Aro has never wanted anything more than Alice's power. * ]]Bella Swan: A member of the Olympic coven. Aro was so impressed with Bella's ability to block mental powers when she was human that he invited her to join the Volturi, and again when she became a vampire; she declined both times. Since her gift is powerful enough to block the Volturi's strongest members' powers and shield others from them, she is an immense threat to the coven. * ]]Benjamin: A member of the Egyptian coven with the unique ability to control the elements of nature, something no one has ever possessed in vampiric history. He was offered a place with the Volturi at the confrontation in Breaking Dawn; with the help of Bella's shield, however, he was able to decline the offer. * The Black and Uley packs: During Renesmee's "trial", Aro saw memories of the Cullens' interactions with the La Push wolves. Thinking the Cullens had somehow tamed the wolves to be their pets, he was intrigued by the idea of the wolves working for him as guard dogs. The wolves snarled in response, effectively putting an end to that line of thinking. With Bella's psychic shield protecting them, the wolves were able to resist the Volturi's members' powers. * ]]Edward Cullen: A member of the Olympic coven. Despite Aro had the talent to read every thought a mind has ever had, Edward's ability to read minds from a distance still intrigued him enough to make him frequently invite the vampire into the coven; he declined every time. * ]]Kate: A member of the Denali coven with the ability to shock others with a psychic electric shock projected on her skin. She was offered a position with the Volturi at the confrontation that took place in Breaking Dawn; she, like the rest who were offered and protected by Bella, declined the invitation. * ]]Renesmee Cullen: The resident half-human half-vampire hybrid member of the Olympic coven with the abilities to communicate with others mentally through touch and break through their mental defenses. Since Renesmee is one of few half-vampires in existence, the Cullens assumed that Aro would want her in his "collection," but, while Aro was intrigued by her, an offer for her was never made. * ]]Zafrina: A member of the Amazon coven with the ability to project illusions into the minds of others. She was offered a place with the Volturi at the confrontation in Breaking Dawn; with Bella's shield to protect her free will, she declined. Advances in Time The Voltori despised the exsitince of Immortal Children. Now however they have created a special gene that is imbued with a vampires Venom called Galashiels. It enables Immortal Children to exsist without the possiblity of exposeing the vampire kind to the world. References